Bush aims for late '04 campaign

2003-04-22 12:11

Washington - United States President George W Bush's bid for re-election will start late in 2004 and coincide with the third anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks, with organisers spending twice as much as during his first campaign, said the New York Times on Tuesday.

Focused on national security and combating terrorism, Bush's campaign will start with his official acceptance speech on September 2 2004, Republicans close to the White House told the daily.

Starting on August 30 - one month after the opposition Democrats choose their contender - the Republican convention for the November 2004 presidential elections will be held in New York and Bush will shuttle between the convention centre and Madison Square Garden, where a commemoration of September 11 will be held.

The venue will highlight Bush's commitment to national security and the fight against terrorism, said party officials.

Spending millions on campaign

They added they hoped it also would deprive the Democrat nominee of critical news coverage at the time.

The latest convention in Republican Party history (founded in 1856) will also enable Bush to spend about $75m (about R572m) of public campaign money - both parties get the same amount under campaign-spending laws - in the last two months of the campaign, giving him an advantage over Democrats, who will have begun spending their money a month earlier.

The unofficial re-election campaign, however, will begin in the spring of 2004 and Republican party officials plan to spend as much as $200m (about R1 525m, twice as much as Bush spent in 2000 when he defeated Al Gore, officials said.

Republican officials added that the Democrats were mistakenly hoping the troubled US economy would erode Bush's popularity, much the same as it did for his father in 1992 when he lost to Bill Clinton, despite his successful 1991 Gulf War.

"This isn't 1991," a Bush adviser told the New York Times.

"People clearly see this as a chapter in a struggle against a new kind of threat. Al-Qaeda is still out there. The security and national security issue is going to remain very, very strong." - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA